Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Right, although unfortunately reason (or faulty application of it or insufficient facts) can fail us too.

This topic is frustrating because I think most of us agree that there is an objective standard for morality (at least with the biggies), but there is no good answer for how get there, mostly because we are humans and humas are falible.

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By "get away with it" what exactly do you mean, BTW? Is the only person you can't get away from God? Because, if so, that rather presupposes the answer you assert as true.


And that's not a very good reading of Rawls. First off, he would explain that cheating on taxes is legitimately punished as immoral, because it doesn't make the least well off better off. As for his "ridiculous" proposition, you've simplified it to the point of meaninglessness. It's a rhetorical device to establish what are "fair" rules. He postulates that it's only fair to set rules if one does not know which side of the rule one will be on. Otherwise, all rules are self-interested. In the original position, however, one cannot be self-interested, other than to ensure that any set of rules will seem fair once one knows one's position.

I don't think Rawls goes all the way to setting a "morality", but one could easily devine moral principles from the theory that would not be based on religion. E.g., the rich should aid bangladesh because one has no idea, in the original position, whether one might be bangladeshie.

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PI is a testable theory. The existence of a universal moral code is not. Morality is also not testable. You say that the Aztecs sacrificed people, but today, everyone seems to accept that human sacrifice is wrong. Very few people would say, it was OK for them to do it because that was part of their culture. But if we believe in cultural relativism, then if the the custom in India is to throw a widow on her husband's funeral pyre who are we to critisize that. For them that is what is right in their culture. But we don't do that.

As far as the Death Penalty is concerned, there is a difference of agreement over whether it is right or wrong. The european think it is wrong for them and us. But if both the Pro-life and Pro-Death penalty people did not believe in universal morality there would be no argument. People would just say it is OK in some cultures and not in others.

We all seem to agree on the existence of this universal moral code, but no one seems to be able to explain where it comes from.

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I shouldn't have use the word ridiculous. His theory is interesting, but it does not address where morality comes from. Or why should people should follow it. If you steal from your neighbor and he never figures it out it was you, how is that wrong. Why is stealing per se wrong? I believe that stealing is wrong, even if no one ever finds out, but that is just my instinct. I have to have "faith" that my instincts are right and that I should do what I think is right even though there is no rational reason that I should follow my instincts. Without "faith" in this universal code why even get involved in politics (except to secure your own self interest).

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I have the sense that more than one philosopher has made a religion-free justification for this, whereas all Christianity has is some clay tablets of legend. I'll go with the former.

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I have been looking for such a theory for a long time and I have never found it. Some have tried, but they always use faulty logic or reasoning or make some sort of leap of faith. If someone knows such a theory that is workable I would love to hear it.

If you have seen the Woody Allen movie, Hannah and her Sisters, Woody Allen plays a guy that has an existential crisis and looks for meaning in life. He reads all the philosphers and he concludes not one of them has a rational reason to be moral or ethical. In addition, none of them come up with a purpose for life. Crimes and Misdemeanors has a similar theme.

I believe the questions still stands: where is the source of morality and ethics in a Godless universe?

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Why doesn't evolution/interdependence/survival of the species work for you?

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What is the source of morality and ethics in a universe with a God? The fact that your fellow humans are motivated by fear of divine retribution makes you feel better?

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Because then morality is just an instinct that helps one survive. Kind of like opposable thumbs. Our instincts tell us to care about the downtrodden, because a society that is full of people that care about the downtrodden survive better than the people in a society that do not. So morality is not really about right or wrong, but just what helps us survive better. In certain Cat societies, if a female cat takes on a new mate, the new male cat will kill all the offspring of the prior mate. He does that because the children from the other mate do not carry his genetic line, so he does not want to waste his resources on an alternate genetic line. Throughout history people have often treated step children less well than their own children. How can you blame them if morality is simply based on survival? How can you critisize a parent that mistreats their step children? Your instinct that such activity is wrong is just an instinct that helps you survive, just like the step parents instinct to mistreat their step child, is an instinct that helps them survive. Who is to say whose instinct is more valid? I think there is a morality that is beyond the logic of survival or just carrying on your genetic line. I know that throwing widows on their dead husbands funeral pyre is wrong. I don't think that my feelings on the subject are just some misplaced survival instinct. And even though such activity does not effect me in any way I feel a responsibility to do something about it.

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I come at it from a different angle. I instinctively know that there is a universal moral code. This code that seems to be instinctual in all men did not just randomly appear. It had to be created by someone or something. This higher power (and therefore smarter and more enlightened than us) determined a set of rules that sentient being should follow. Something inside me tells me these rules should be followed, and I have just assumed that I should follow those instincts. I just assume (or have faith) that my inclincation to do certain things (to be moral) is just what I should be doing. I don't know anything about retribution or anything like that, I just have faith that following ones moral instincts is what one should do.

Jefferson expressed this idea in the Declaration of Independance. Our rights do not come from man, or laws made by men, but that "we are endowed by our creator with certain inaleable rights". We have these rights no matter what the law says. My instincts tell me Jefferson was right. I can't rationally explain why, I just think he is right.

I have faith in a universal moral code.

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Yeah, we get that. I know have no doubt that you are an R. I think Rove or the Christian right or something got to you and has been brainwashing you by playing tapes over and over again as you sleep.

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Have you heard of Sam Harris? He believes that faith is the biggest cause of harm and conflict in our world.

His web page is: http://www.samharris.org/index.php/s...s/appearances/

His statements from the show of faith under fire are pretty interesting. The Video is on the link.

The problem is, no matter how well he critiques faith, he never seems to come up with an alternative source of morality.

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But doesn't the moral code change? And, if so, how do we account for the fact that the moral code changes? If the code is instinctive, why is the moral code of a person in 2005 (e.g., anti-slavery) different than the code of a person in 100 A.D. (slavery of one's enemies is OK)? Has our creator endowed the person of 2005 with different rights than the person of 100 A.D.

If this has been covered before in this discussion I apologize, I haven't read the full thread.

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Translation: The world is confusing, with many inexplicable things. The only explanation is that there is a god.


I don't get it, and I certainly don't get what it proves, because it leaves nearly as much open. To wit, I've long believed that there is a god who at least go things started around the big bang. But I don't see what that tells me about anything since. There could be a heaven and a hell. Or there could not. I could take Pascal's wager, or I could not. But what you seem to be left with is "no human-developed moral code has sufficient teeth and I'm at such a loss as to why (most) humans act morally that the only explanation is god." That seems the least satisfying answer of all.

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What he said. Also, I would think that if there was a universal moral code of divine origin, it would be, well, more universal, and more constant over time and place.

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Everyone looking out for their own self-interest was perhaps a bit of a simplification. By "self" I also meant those that we hold dear. For instance, I don't rape my neighbor's daughter because I don't want anyone raping my daughter, and if it's okay for me, then how can I argue it isn't okay for someone else.

Same with the starving children. It's in my enlightened self-interest to support the notion of relief for the poor and hungry, in case I ever become poor and hungry myself.

Of course, the most elegant example of this sort of enlightened self-interest brings us back to God, and Pascal's gamble.

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That's absurd. The notion of "The Good" existed long before the existence of the type of religious belief system you are talking about. The Greek gods didn't enforce a moral code, but clearly Plato sought to understand the nature of what is Good, among other topics.

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So it seems like you're down to "faith is the least-bad source of morality."

put differently "religion is the worst form of moral codes except all those others that have been."

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

2. It's interesting, too, that a lot of those deviations from the general "don't hurt people, don't kill people" princple are based on other religious principles. Female circumcision, human sacrifice, suttee. Friend of mine quoted Leviticus to me in another context yesterday:

Seems that a lot of cultures get around the bigger principle by saying God told them it was ok.

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That's easy. All accessions to wealth, be they wages, trade or business income, capital gains, insurance proceeds, gifts, or inheritance are taxable at a rate of say, 12-15%. Each taxpayer receives a single credit for an amount equal to that tax that would be paid on income equal to an index that measures average cost of living, adjusted for inflation and number of persons in the household. Allow for a refundable credit, and you've eliminated the welfare and social security systems and infrastructure as well.

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there's a wholly non-fatuous argument to be made that far more in the way of evil has been done in the name of religion than good.

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1. They don't know they can get away with it.

2. If they do it, then what is to stop everyone else from doing it?

3. True self-interest requires the rational person to recognize that each individual break in the social contract weakens it, and no one of us can be certain at what point the contract will be too weak to hold.

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Who let you out of the menstrual hut?

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Indeed, the fact that even religious societies need laws says something about the strength of the moral code they purport to advance.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." -Federalist No. 51 (J. Madison).

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That would certainly explain a lot.

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"To wit"? Alas, what century are you in?

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Actually, yes. Well, maybe not everyone, but a significant number of taxpayers will reduce or elimiinate their reporting and payment of tax if they feel that the system will not catch them. This is known in the trade as the "audit lottery." It's effect has been proven by Treasury revenue and collections statistics countless times.

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The thing that separates humans from the lower species is our ability to rationalize and empathize. Your insistence that man is left with nothing but instinct without the existence of God is faulty for the simple reason that it leaves out this essential feature of what makes us human.

Next Topic, Please
 

Does Nothing exist?

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

2.

First things first - stop saying this is Darwin's theory (no one's done it in a few pages, but still). Darwin made some passing comments about complex social behaviors possibly having some heritable aspect, but Darwin did not promote the "social Darwinist" theories you're refering to.

Second - if (pretty much) all people are genetically predisposed to have an instinct driving them to feed starving children, why is that universal instinct not the basis for a "universal" moral code? Because it may be irrational? Just because self interest may find expression in several ways (evolutionary/instinctual and rational), why would the evolutionary (universal) aspect not be a sound basis for a universal code of morality? Justifying one's irrational impulse to do good with "faith" is no more convincing an argument that basing it on "thousands of years of evolutionary pressures producing this instinct in individuals with a higher rate of survival." In fact, it is much less so. Evolution strikes me as a much better (and much less culturally relative) basis for any universal code than God and religion (which, as is perfectly obvious, does not produce "universal" codes of morality but instead conflicting relative ones).

The rational free-rider problem is applicable to all moral codes, not just ones that consider themselves to be based on evolved instincts for self-interest. It undermines divine morality as much as evolutionary behaviorism, and in nearly the same way. (After all, it is the divine mover who gave us rationality, which, if we exercise it, tells us that it is in our interests to ignore God's moral codes.) And, while it may seem superficially rational to eschew moral behavior to free-ride, besides the cute Kantian and Rawlsian cites offered (which may be summarized as "acquiescing to serve a broader interest in lieu of my immediate self interest is in fact in my longer-term self interest" or "the shoe may be on the other foot some day"), it is entirely rational to debate whether it is in fact rational to assume one's own rational analysis of what behaviors will be individually beneficial is superior to instinctive behaviors with millenia of proven success.

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I don't think it has really changed. I think even in 100 A.D. people knew instinctively that slavery was wrong, but certain people benefited and therefor kept it going. During Roman times many philosophers suggested slavery was wrong. I think as time moves forward there is a slow progression towards changes in the law and human societies conforming more towards the code.

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There is no questions it is weak, but do you have a better one?

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I offered two in my initial response. Mill and Rawls.

Your problem is your comparing ideal compliance under religion with real-world compliance in any other system. Well, sorry, but it's not like the threat of hell seems to prevent half of catholics from using birth control and believing abortion should be legal. Just ask the priests themselves if there's universal adherence to their own church's morality.

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I don't think there's a universal moral code, but the process you describe is consistent with the idea that there has been a long evolution of moral reasoning, with people gradually converging on agreement over fundamental principles, but continuing to disagree in various ways about specific application.

You seem to think the fact that we all think this way suggests that there is a God. Not to say there isn't a good, but maybe it reflects that we get our moral philosophy from our parents and others who raise us. Or that the human brain is hard-wired to certain moral dispositions because we all share a brain design that evolved in this way on the plains of East Africa.

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Kind of a post hoc. What about the code are they not conforming with now? Or is it an evolving code. If people knew slavery was wrong, why did it happen? Hell has gotten hotter?

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They may have discussed it but they never defined it. Talking about how acidic something is is ridiculous without a ph scale. Talking about how heavy or light something does not work with out some kind of measuring system. Same as talking about how illegal something is unless there is some code of penal system - misdemeaor, A felony, B felony etc. Saying something is really immoral, just immoral or not immoral at all is ridiculous without some sort of way to measure. Since Plato did not have a code, he just assumed it was insinctual. He also assumed that every one would agree on what is good and what is not. He assumed a code.

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Yes that is pretty much it. Again, I know it is weak, but its the same defense Churchill gave Democracy and Capitalsim.

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I agree, but people have such a strong instinct for the moral code that religion is the best way to get people to ignore it. I think people instinctively know female circumscission is wrong, so the best way to get them to ignore their instincts is to say that they must ignore their instincts because it is God's law.

Winning hearts and minds in the crusade against terrorism.
 

http://americablog.blogspot.com/newtest.jpg

Not such a hot idea, I'm thinking.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal